Book Review [2015:12] The Winter Garden by Jane Thynne

432 pages

This is the second of the Clara Vine novels, which I discovered earlier this year when I read Black Roses. 

The year is now 1937, and Clara remains in Berlin which has changed considerably for the worse since the early 30s of the first book. Clara continues to tread a dangerous tightrope, feeding information to the British Secret Services and also to the Nazis via Joseph Goebbels (a complex double bluff). The focus of this book has moved slightly from the fascinating Magda Goebbels and on to the bizarre and notorious Nazi Bride Schools. It's not a topic I know much about and the incidental characters in the bride school are well drawn and the experience very believably described.

Again, Clara is confronted with the apparent murder of one of her acquaintances and has to tread carefully to try and determine the truth in a complex world of Nazi smoke and mirrors. Clara now has care of the son of one of her friends and this is a really good addition to her character, as she has to deal with his fascination with the Hitlerjugend without compromising her beliefs.

Thynne bravely continues to introduce real characters into the story, this time involving The Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson, The Mitford Sisters and Charles Lindburgh, as well as Eva Braun and Ernst Udet. I often find that sort of contrivance frustrating and false, but such is Thynne's ability as a writer that they pass into and out of the story, often as rather believable sideshows, and the wonderful Clara often doesn't pay them too much attention, not realising their significance until later. Unity Mitford in particular is such a marvellous addition. Clara's unwitting stumbling into the lives at centre of the Third Reich proves a brilliant foil for some amusing background stories.

The complex story of the progression to the second world war is handled competently and the war in Spain is weaved into this story without becoming too much of a historical exposition. Clara's character is totally believable and her behaviour having found herself in this rather dangerous, unpredictable situation never seems too fictional. I did balk slightly at the central premise of one of the main points of the plot which I won't discuss to avoid spoilers, but such is the joy of Thynne's writing all was quickly forgiven.

I'm really enjoying this series of books, and I look forward to the third!

Book Review [2015:5]: Black Roses by Jane Thynne

496 pages

If there's one thing I like in a book is it a believable,  ordinary character. On the face of it this is a spy story set in Berlin in the 1930s. So far, so standard. What's very different is that this is a book about a girl who ends up in Berlin almost on a whim, is befriended by Magda Goebbels and an English secret service officer (almost at the same time) and is forced to decide what she really believes and where her loyalties lie.

Into the complexity of 1933 Berlin steps Clara Vine, a English girl who longs to be an actor and has been offered a chance of work at the Ufa studios. She sees this as a timely get-out-clause to escape her unsatisfactory engagement to an English oaf. Her progress from young naïve actor to crucial intelligence-gatherer is woven neatly into the study of the world of 1930s Berlin: the rise of national socialism, and the confusing position of journalists and ambassadors in this unsettled time. Hitler's obsession with defining the role of the woman in German society, down to the clothes and jewellery she wears (or doesn't) and the ambitions she should have, is well exemplified. The juxtaposition of the 'good German hausfrau' and the fashion conscious and high-society loving female upper echelons of the Reich are excellently described. 

I really enjoy historical fiction, and I'm sure my knowledge of the Second World War is similar to most; I'm no expert in either politics or economics. Previously my knowledge of Magda Goebbels was limited to the fact that she killed all of her 6 children with cyanide before killing herself, as the Red Army took control of Berlin. Clearly every person is far more complex than the tiny nuggets that posterity afford them, but Magda Goebbels really does deserve a second look. Her life as the wife of Joseph Goebbels, and First Lady of the Third Reich seems at odds with her background of Philosemitism (is that a word?). 

Was the Magda Goebbels - Haim Arlosoroff relationship a work of fiction? I can't find any evidence online in my cursory search. It seems to be a shame to have invented something integral to the story and yet really totally unnecessary. The only down point to an excellent novel. I will certainly be reading the second two books of the trilogy.